I discovered Vidura BR, like all things necessary and good, via Instagram. I am addicted to the platform and frequently waste hours scrolling through reels of unknown-to-me comedians, cackling and grinning with heartfelt glee while the rest of my life falls apart. No regrets. You gotta laugh.

When Vidura BR popped up on my feed at some point last year, I stopped in my tracks and devoured every video on his grid. I shared them on every single WhatsApp group that I could without being considered inappropriate (so not the Year 2 parent chat, for example). “LOOK!” I would type before dropping the link to whichever video it was that had struck that deliciously unsettling chord that only comedy can – the sweet spot where despair and delight converge. I had imagined everyone would find this London-based Sri Lankan comedian-writer-director as utterly brilliant as I did.

But my link-drops weren’t always met with enthusiasm. Sometimes silence. Other times, I could almost hear a distant eyebrow raise…and yet, I remained convinced I had found the most exciting, relevant new face of comedy.

I stand by this.

Though in Oxford, I might be standing alone…

The vibe of the evening was a little more awkward than I had anticipated.

The show was opened by Vidura’s pal Joe, a singer-songwriter who unexpectedly appeared with his guitar and immediately apologised for doing so, head bowed low and a distinct air of terror about him. Now, I’m not an expert at anything much at all in life, but I do think that apologising before you’ve even done anything is a bad start. What followed were a few perfectly pleasant songs that didn’t really need apologising for (there was an honourable hint of John Lennon to Joe) but I would say the whole experience created a slightly awkward vibe.

Just in time, Vidura BR himself strolled onto the stage, though with minimal fanfare. He encouraged us, a little, to clap him on, and a few of us did. But again, there was something a little out-of-sorts about the whole thing. The lacklustre vibe was gaining momentum.

After a few opening narratives, Vidura soon commented on the minimal feedback he was receiving from the crowd. It’s not that everything was falling flat – because there was laughter – it was just that behind the laughs was a palpable hollowness in the atmosphere. It was like half the room had turned up thinking they were going to get something completely different. I wondered why and how, if these people had not already been devouring Vidura on social media, were they even here?

I sensed there was a generational divide; at one point, Vidura shared that he had recently taken up smoking, having chosen to opt for the pleasure it brings now over the potentially ill-health it might bring to his future. I can relate to this. I adore smoking, but I am now too close to the ‘end’ to take it seriously, and with many an audience member being now in the fraction of life where such risks might be cashing themselves in, not such an uproarious response. Vidura himself commented on it being an older, whiter audience than his usual turnout and frequently noted the ill-fit of some of his material as he delivered it, though all the while smiling, seeming somehow fine with the way things are going despite it being, as he put it, "not his finest hour".

Vidura is intensely self-deprecating, sharing raw apparently honest stories (can we ever truly trust a comedian?) about his battles with body image, confidence, his family, and relationships – the key theme of the French Kiss Tunnel tour. He is cynical though whereas with other comedians this can bring a harshness, for me, Vidura’s resigned pessimism is soft – kindly liberating, even. He has a knack for uncovering the ridiculousness in some aspects of our society and lives – big and small – that no one else has yet called out. He is not afraid to be seen to be a fool amidst fools, to share his suffering for that fact and yet somehow appear entirely comfortable with it too. There is a resigned ease about him that is perhaps unsettling to some. He’ll laugh at himself and it really does seem without ego, the effect of which leaves us feeling perhaps a teeny bit aware of our own sense of self-importance – I wondered if an immigrant skilfully drawing everyone’s attention to their own ridiculousness was too much for a more mature Oxford crowd.

In one of his TikTok reels, Vidura comments on how people have described him as looking like “a chocolate Jesus”, to which he responds that if anything, he looks like a “historically accurate Jesus.” Fact is, he’s a pretty hot, young, long-haired man completely owning his out-of-placeness, unafraid to sit on stage with painted nails and be vulnerable, cutting, and comfortable, regardless of who's in the room.

Indeed, I would say Vidura appears to have found the comfort in the discomfort of life.

I say, if you can do that, you’re winning.